Effect of high fidelity simulation on perceptions of self-awareness, empathy, and patient-centered care among university pediatric nursing classes

Introduction: Improvement in nurses' features such as self-awareness, empathy, and patient-centered care leads to positive patient outcomes. High fidelity simulation is one of the interventions which was used to enhance the mentioned nursing students' features. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of high-fidelity simulation on students’ perception of self-awareness, empathy, and patient-centered care at pre and post-intervention in undergraduates’ pediatric nursing students at Arab American University in Palestine. Methods: A group of pretest-posttest design was used. The accessible sample of all undergraduate pediatric nursing students (N = 83) who enrolled in the pediatric classes in the Faculty of Nursing was recruited. Results: The findings showed a significant difference between students' perceptions pre and post high-fidelity simulation intervention for self-awareness (t = -31.74, p < 0.001), empathy (t = -18.24, p < 0.001), and patient-centered care (t = -17.36, p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant improvement in self-awareness, empathy, and patient-centered care as a result of simulation. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest infusing the nursing curriculum, particularly, pediatric course with simulation based-teaching intervention to increase self-awareness, empathy, and patient-centered care is a critical issue to fill gaps in these areas and to supplement traditional clinical learning. Please note a corrigendum for this article is available via https://www.nursingsimulation.org/article/S1876-1399(21)00124-9/fulltext